Last stop in Italy: Cinque Terre

After spending 24 nights in Italy, it came down to one last stop in the beautiful seaside villages called Cinque Terre. (i should mention I'm a little lagging in the blog at the moment, and we have actually been in Nice for the last 4 nights. But here's what I missed at the end of Italy).

Cinque Terre, literally translating to "Five Lands" in English, are these tiny little villages of Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corneglia, Vernazza and Monterosso that sit on the Mediterranean sea up on the West coast of Italy. The Cinque Terre is a UNESCO national park, with hikes in between each of the villages ranging from a 20 minute walk along 'lovers lane', to full- day mountain hikes. For those not in a walking mood, there's a train that links each of the villages as well (though as we found out, it doesn't run to a particular schedule).

Riomaggiore

We based ourselves in Riomaggiore, the first of the villages you arrive in as you make your way up the coast from the town of La Spezia. It's a tiny town that slopes upwards, with houses and little apartments stacked on one another on the slopes. And like much of the cinque terre islands, there are lots of steep, steep stairs. We booked a '10 person dorm room' which turned out to be a tiny little apartment with one room and a bathroom to the side with 4 beds in total. We asked the grouchy reception lady (I think she was actually American) if we could expect any other roommates while we were there. "Yes ma'am" was her reply, and yet we returned home each night to find that it was just us so that worked out pretty well. I was very excited that we had one of the traditional washing lines that you see everywhere in Italy- a rope below a window that works on a pulley system. Mike wasn't so excited when he left his clothes on there overnight and it rained.

Clothesline, Italian style

There is a small 'main street' in Riomaggiore that leads down to the marina, with a couple of bars with wifi (VERY rare around the cinque terre), some restaurants that were out of our budget, and some good little takeaway shops which we were very happy to find. The beach in this town wasn't great for swimming, but the rocks nearby were nice to sit on around sunset.

After more than three weeks of Italian sunshine, our luck with the weather had to come to a end sometime. Apparently that sometime was at Cinque Terre. Our first day of exploring was the only sunny day we had and we took advantage of it while we could. We walked the stretch between Riomaggiore and Manarola affectionately known as "Via dell'amore" (lover's lane), where couples have taken to declaring their love on the walls of the tunnel, or hanging love locks (padlocks used to signify a lasting love, or something to that effect). We had one better than all those though, and now one of Mike's dreadlocks hangs somewhere along Via del'Amore.

Manarola, the second town we saw, was probably the smallest of the five villages, and was a nice place to sit and read while Mike went for a swim. We caught a train from there to Corniglia since we found out the path was closed due to landslide. The Cinque Terre was badly damaged by floods on October 25th, 2011, and the town centers in Vernazza and Monterosso in particular were all but washed away. The people of the villages have been working hard to restore it before the summer tourist season, and really this closed path and a couple of fundraising t-shirts were the only signs that a flood had actually hit these areas. It's amazing they've managed to get everything up and running again in a short amount of time, especially when you consider that these little villages are so isolated and so steep to get around, it would have been a massive clean up effort.

The third town, Corniglia, sits atop a big cliff, which means that there is no way but stairs to reach the town when you get off the train. 382 steps later, we had made it. In Corniglia we rewarded ourselves one of the region's most famous products: Pesto. We had a pesto pizza and I have to say, it's probably one of the most underrated pizza toppings... It was the best! We later sampled some gelato, counting down how many we would have left in our last few days in Italy. I am happy to report gelato was the cheapest we have seen in Cinque Terre, which it possible to go from a daily shared cup between us, to twice daily treat on our last two days. I'm going to miss gelato....

Afterwards we went straight to the 5th and biggest town, Monterosso, by train and spent the afternoon on the beach. The water was so blue here, and the sea is super salty. At about 5pm, big storm clouds started looming, so we took shelter in a bar overlooking the beach that served happy hour cocktails with complimentary chips, olives and peanuts when you ordered. That's about when the rain started to set in....

On our next and final day, we woke to grey skies but thankfully no rain. We took advantage of the cooler weather and decided to try one of the hikes in the area. We got the train to Corneglia, walked up those 382 steps again, and then took the hike from there to the next town, Vernazza. It was 4km up through the hills and at times some very steep steps, and we soon realized why the sign said this was the 'wildest of the walks'- it felt like you were actually walking through a jungle in some places. The views over the town were amazing from the hills though, and we were glad we got to make it to Vernazza without getting rained on (I would not want to be on those steep,slippery steps of the hills in the rain!).

In Vernazza we sampled some of the local seafood that was in abundance in the area, and had takeaway of fried calamari, vegetables and chips. By this stage it was late afternoon and the weather didn't look too promising, so we didn't want to attempt the next hike and caught between two villages. We got the train back to Riomaggiore and ended our time in the Cinque Terre with cheap beers on the rocks to watch the sunset (or at least, what you could see through the clouds), and then we had our last Italian feast. We had a little 'pesto festo', and between us shared a big pesto pizza with ham and mushrooms, and a special type of pasta typical to the area called something like 'trofuie' i think, home made with a pesto sauce. We sat at the marina with a bottle of red wine and enjoyed our last taste of Italy.

So after nearly a month in Italy (28 days all up), here's some things we've found from our time here:

* It goes without saying, but Italian food is truly amazing! I am so glad we got to sample this as our first leg of our European trip. But I have also found that Italians eat a ridiculous amount (to put it in perspective, whenever we would got out, we would order pasta or something from the 'prima piatto' menu for about €8... This is just an ENTREE in the Italian way of life!) Yet surprisingly, you don't see too many young Italians who are overweight. Valentina explained it that 'Italians eat healthy, and all the food they cook is fresh; unlike Americans who eat a big greasy hamburger for dinner, we cook with lots of fresh produce'. I guess they don't have the same worries about carbs as us then....

* Alcohol is cheap compared to home, and there doesn't seem to be a legal drinking age. Italians grow up with wine as part of their culture, and children are encouraged to drink a little from a younger age. They seem more responsible with their alcohol here.. Sure, you'd still get people who get completely drunk when they go out, but you can go to a supermarket here and get every type of alcohol imaginable. Back home, if we sold bottles of vodka for €10 (about $12.50), I bet there'd be drunks on the street all day. As for cocktails, we started off thinking €8 was cheap. Now, if anywhere is over €5 (about $6.25), you start to question it. And they don't measure shots out here either, so when you pay your €5, you know you are getting your money's worth.

*On the other hand, water is surprisingly expensive. Italians don't drink tap water, which gives the impression that tap water is not drinkable. We soon worked out they just prefer bottled, and in particular sparkling water, and that the tap water was perfectly fine to drink. In lots of places, they have fountains of water running all day in the town centre, for free, which makes paying for water seem kind of strange. In some supermarkets, a big bottle of water would be about the same price as a bottle of wine!

*I'm glad we don't have to drive around here- petrol is ridiculously expensive at at least €1.80/L ( that's about $2.25/L at home)

*Everyone does the cheek kiss thing when they meet (and I admit, i thought this was something only the French stereotypically did). And I still haven't worked out which way you are meant to go first, leading to some awkward head bumps along the way...

Next up, we are following the coast around to hop over into France, and basing ourselves in Nice. Although the Italian I know is only a tiny amount, it's going to be weird not having ANY clue what people are saying.